Chapter 10 · The Understudy in the Glass

The knife trembled between Maeve’s fingers.

Not because her hand was weak. The blade was heavy, its black edge drinking the blue light leaking from Henry’s failing seal, but she had held worse things in worse places. She had cut through skin, muscle, and bone in rooms where every second had a price.

This was different.

The script had written her name above the command.

MAEVE KELLAN: KILL THE UNDERSTUDY.

Eli stood three feet away, blood darkening the collar of his shirt. One hand pressed against his ribs. The other hung open at his side, palm up, as if he had already surrendered it to the blade.

Behind him, the mirror double smiled with Maeve’s mouth.

Jonah screamed from somewhere beyond the walls.

The sound came thin and distorted, like a child crying through a telephone line. It threaded through the condemned theater, through the torn velvet and cracked plaster, and curled around Maeve’s wrist.

Eli flinched.

The knife moved an inch.

‘Don’t,’ he said.

Maeve’s eyes snapped to his. ‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t let it make your hand honest.’

The black pages rustled on the floor between them. Ink crawled over the paper in wet, living strokes.